Why It’s Important To Have Rest Days

June 7, 2018

You’re going on the trip of your lifetime. You’ve been planning for months in advance. You’re covering dozens of cities and ticking off your bucket list items. All the days are packed to the brim with sight-seeing, walking tours and eating adventures. You’re ready to throw your backpack over your shoulder and go, go, go for three, six or twelve months straight! But have you factored rest days into the equation?

Perhaps for budget purposes or time restrictions, you haven’t planned rest days into your trip. No one wants to waste their precious annual leave. Or maybe you’ve thought that you’ll get some “rest” on that overnight train from A to B. We agree with these points and have been in that position ourselves. But for longer travel adventures, it would be wise to include rest days every 7-10 days and we believe that the following points highlight why.

1 – Recharge

Pressing pause of your holiday will give you the opportunity to recharge your body’s batteries as well as your technology’s batteries (laptop, camera, phone etc). Ideally, your rest days take place in locations where power sockets are in abundant supply.

TIP: Make sure you have the correct power adaptor for the countries you’re visiting!

2 – Reassess

Rest days provide ample time to reassess your financial situation (perhaps you encountered some unexpected costs), adjust your travel schedule if need be and again, to assess your body for any injuries and other wear and tear.

3 – Replenish & Reload

Rest days allow you to reload your bags with any necessities and essentials (e.g. toiletries, medicines), do your washing and replenish your body with minerals and nutrients. It’s amazing how good a home cooked meal tastes after feasting on take away for 10 days straight!

4 – Reflect

Take some time to write in a travel diary. Note down things like what you saw, what you ate, who you met, where you’ve visited and how it all made you feel. One day you might start a travel blog and having notes come in handy. Also don’t forget to scrawl a message on the back of a postcard that you promised to send to your grandmother.

5 – Rest

Most importantly, rest days should be for resting! It’s not ideal, but you may need to catch up on some much needed sleep, give your legs a rest from walking and your back from lugging your backpack around everywhere. Depending on where you are, you might treat yourself to a body massage or convince your other half to knead out the knots in your shoulders!

Do you factor rest days into your travels? We’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below!

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The Travel Quandary
The Travel Quandary ventures to places to discover the secrets off the tourist trail. Forever searching for the next culinary adventure, you’ll find us frolicking with the locals and getting lost among the scents, the history and the tastes of each country.